Syracuse, NY --The defenders on the Syracuse University football team can hardly contain their excitement when discussing the system coordinator Scott Shafer installed shortly after his arrival in January.

"Shafer's a genius defensive coordinator," sophomore defensive end Mikhail Marinovich said. "He has these schemes that are unblockable. If you run them right you have one more guy than they have. It's a blast. I love it."

Don't mention schemes to Shafer, though. He thinks they are overrated. The man who turned around defenses at Western Michigan and Stanford and is now being asked to performed similar magic here - where SU ranked No. 101 in the nation in total defense last season - sat down after practice the other day and discussed the challenge and where the defense stands as camp wound down.

Question: The players are real excited about this scheme. What did you see when you came in? Did you feel the pieces were there to run what you wanted to run?

Scott Shafer: I think the system lends itself to being able to do whatever is in the package that fits the personnel. I think it's more what do we have, what don't we have? Let's run what we can do with the kids we have and then recruit, and as you work forward you can multiply the package a little bit.

Q: Did you sense these kids needed some confidence when you arrived? I mean, this is a team that has been beaten down.

SS: Yeah, but I think these kids are resilient. I think more than having to coddle them or bring them around that way, it was more they were hungry to do better, and they wanted to please. And they've shown us throughout the course of the summer that they want to be a hard-nosed defense and they want to work hard. And they're starting to accept the fact that we're going to practice hard every single day. And I've been really pleased, because there is no sense of entitlement with this group. It's a group of hungry kids who just want to find a way to win more games. That excites all of us as coaches.

Q: In that regard, you probably had a willing audience instead of show me, prove it to me?

SS: Exactly. Yeah.

Q: Is this defense starting to develop a personality yet?

SS: Yeah, it is. It definitely is. It doesn't guarantee results one way or the other, but what it does is it focuses in on just daily improvement. And as simple as that sounds, that's the most important thing you can do when you're trying to get the program set in the right direction. Like I said, I'm really pleased with the attitude of the kids and the effort that's shown on video each day after we come off the field. It's been a nice long, hard camp. It's been a physical camp. And to see the kids begin to have a "bring it on" type of attitude is definitely encouraging.

Q: Every player I've talked to is really excited. What is it about your scheme and approach that excites them so much?

SS: Well, you know, I believe scheme is overrated. It's the players within the scheme who buy in that changes a culture and the situation we're in. That's more important than the scheme. I really believe scheme is overrated.

Q: Everybody says it is an attacking defense, which gives an impression of all-out blitzing on every play. That's not what you're talking about, is it?

SS: The biggest misconception with an attack-oriented defense is that you're blitzing every down. What an attack defense does for you is it gives the kids the latitude to really come off the ball hard and to try to create a new line of scrimmage with your front four, and then your back three (the linebackers) getting downhill when they read their keys and playing fast and flowing fast to the ball. It's more an attitude of coming off the ball as opposed to maybe a misconceived notion that you're blitzing off the ball on every down.

Q: And I'm sure if you can control the line of scrimmage and put pressure on the quarterback with your front four alone you'll be the happiest guy in the stadium.

SS: That's right. The goals for this defense are as follows: Stop the run. Every defensive coordinator says that, but you need to really look at your scheme and say are you really giving the kids a chance to do that? You stop the run. And if you can stop the run and force an offense to be one-dimensional . . . even though maybe they choose to be a passing offense first and a run offense second, if you can eliminate the run and force them to throw, then maybe you have some opportunities to have some pressures and that sort of thing to give the kids a chance to really tee off on them.

Q: This defense has only forced 30 turnovers over the last two seasons. How do you address that?

SS: Hopefully we can change that. Being physical in the other people's backfield is the starting point . . . when you can forced the running back to go sideways. And then get hats on the ball. I've been really lucky over the years. I've had a couple defenses over the years that have led the country in turnovers - interceptions, forced fumbles, that sort of thing. And really when I look at those teams, it wasn't because we had two or three unbelievable guys who could find the ball. It was really more 11 guys just trying to knock the hell out of people, guys running as hard as they can to the ball. When you do that, good things happen.

As far as the passing game goes, turnovers come when you force the quarterback to throw the ball a little bit earlier than maybe he wanted to, and then you really learn how to read the one guy who throws interceptions. As a coach, one of the most underrated things is to teach a kid to read the quarterback, trying to learn how to read his front shoulder. That and trying to supply enough pressure so he can't look one way and then turn and throw the other way are probably the keys. Those are the things we're working hard at.

Q: And you see progress?

SS: I've been pleased with the coaches. I've been pleased with their effort to do the little things right on a daily basis, and it's starting to show up on film. Now, what's that going to turn into throughout the course of the year? You never know. The biggest thing we're trying to focus in on is ourselves and controlling what we can do on a daily basis. And when you do that and you make improvements you can feel good about putting your head on the pillow at night.